The Martial Unity

"What's the game plan?" Kane asked him, glancing around nervously.

"We target groups of monsters or beasts one by one. Then, I scan their memories for the Divine Doctor," Rui replied. "We keep it low-profile, and we should be fine."

Because the region had beasts and animals that could threaten their lives, Rui wanted to be more clinical with how he approached the matter.

He would rather not be crude and haphazard like he was in the Valley of Prisms. This time, he intended to conduct surgical operations of memory scanning while drawing the least amount of attention to himself.

The two of them carefully navigated the Forest of Death. The absence of almost any other color, barring black, was unnerving. They drew so much attention by virtue of being extremely bright-colored in comparison that they activated their misdirection stealth techniques almost subconsciously.

It wasn't long before they arrived at several deer-like creatures grazing on black grass.

"Blackhinds," Rui whispered. "Good. They are docile and herbivorous beasts. On top of that, these are Squire-level. Let's go for them first."

He turned to Kane. "I need you to watch my back and keep an eye on our surroundings while I scan their memories."

Kane nodded as the two of them activated their Martial Hearts. Kane expanded his senses to the surroundings while Rui appeared before the blackhinds in the blink of an eye. Before they could even react—

Sleep.

The world went dark as Soul Void overtook their senses, leaving only Rui—who promptly misdirected them while planting suggestions in their subconscious mind—visible. Instantly, the conscious mind grew dimmer while the subconscious mind grew more active. Before they knew it, the blackhinds were in a semi-conscious state. Of course, Rui still needed to bind them with heaven-bending, for their cognitive capabilities had remained untouched, not reducing in the slightest. They still did everything they would have done otherwise: thrashing and resisting while bleating, except they did so semi-consciously rather than consciously.

While Kane kept a sharp eye on their surroundings for any threats, Rui got to work.

He conjured up the image of the Divine Doctor, now refined from the memories of the catoblepas, before conveying that image to the blackhinds.

Much to his surprise, they didn't react at all.

He showed it to them over and over again, yet they didn't so much as twitch in response.

The appearance of the Divine Doctor held no significance to them.

"Wait a minute," Rui's eyes widened with realization. "If almost all the creatures of the Forest of Fear died due to the fear of the forest being absent for some time, causing their fear to reduce to nothing, leading to their death, then…"

His expression grew grave. "All the animals who bore witness to the Divine Doctor are probably…"

They were probably dead.

While the Valley of Prisms had a myriad of animals that had very vivid memories of the Divine Doctor, the same could not be said for the Forest of Fear.

While the results of the Divine Doctor's disruption in the Valley of Prisms was solely a temporary exodus, the result of his interference in the Forest of Fear, however, was mass extinction.

In other words, an overwhelming majority of the sources of information that would tell Rui about the Divine Doctor were gone.

"…Does that mean we're screwed?" Kane asked with a severe tone.

"…Not necessarily, but our job has definitely become a lot harder than it was in the Valley of Prisms." Rui heaved a sigh. "We need to find creatures in this forest that survived the disappearance of the fear of the forest."

"How can we possibly do that?" Kane scratched his head. "There are millions of animals and beasts in this forest. "How can we possibly find the ones who survived the mass extinction caused by the Divine Doctor?"

Rui closed his eyes as his mind furiously processed all the information at hand. "We identify the traits that would predict survival in such a circumstance and then search for beasts with such traits. They are the ones that are the likeliest to have been able to survive the mass extinction."

Kane frowned. "And what traits are those?"

"…Fear is one," Rui remarked thoughtfully. "Any creature with a higher innate sense of fear would not have gone absolutely batshit insane leading to their deaths. So creatures that are more fearful than others would be far less likely to do the kind of things that got all the other creatures of the Beast Domain killed."

"Didn't you say that all the creatures of the Forest of Fear had evolved to have very little innate fear so that when it got amplified by the fear-inducing substances in the air, they would reach normal levels of fear?" Kane asked, even as he glanced around in fear.

"Yeah, so I think that we probably are not going to find any creature with an especially high sense of innate fear," Rui breathed deeply. "There is one other trait that could help us find who we are looking for."

"…Which is?"

"Power." Rui sharpened his eyes. "Even if they went crazy, stronger creatures are less likely to die as a result of their insanity."

After all, there were fewer things that could get a stronger creature killed. That meant that, even if it went crazy, the statistical probability that it would get itself killed was lower.

"That means your best bet for finding a survivor of the Divine Doctor's mass extinction event will be the strongest creatures of the Forest of Fear?" Kane asked as he gulped nervously.

"Correct."

"…But the strongest creatures in this forest are Senior-level, right?" His voice grew even more fearful.

"Correct." Rui's tone grew graver.

"Which means we'll have to pick a fight with Senior-level creatures?" Kane's breathing grew more unsteady as he began sweating more. "That's crazy!"

"Hey, calm down," Rui turned to him, shaking him. "That's just the forest messing with your mind with fear."

Rui found himself withstanding the effects extremely well in comparison. This was, no doubt, thanks to his evolved mind and evolved resistance to mental impact.

"We're going to have to hunt the Senior-level beasts of this forest and scan their memories after we suppress them."

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